Who is Kermit the Frog? He’s often described as the glue that holds the Muppets together. When Jim Henson’s colleagues are asked which character Jim was most similar to, the frog is often the first one name-checked: He was the guy making everything work, a straight man in the middle of a throng of eccentrics.
All of which is great, but you know when I really love Kermit? When he freaks the hell out. One complaint fans have of recent Muppet projects is that Kermit just doesn’t lose his temper like he used to, which is a valid point. He’s supposed to be a funny character, and he’s never funnier than when he loses his cool.Here are some of my favorite instances of Kermit losing his composure, rated on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) I’m call the Freakout-o-meter, and some of which are accompanied by nifty links to the Sesame Street Video Player and YouTube.
Grover Sells Sunglasses
On Sesame Street, Kermit is free of the insanity of The Muppet Show, but he still gets to play straight man to some crazy characters. Kermit was often paired with Grover to great effect, including a series of sketches in which Grover is a salesman trying to sell Kermit products he can’t really use. I guess these sketches wouldn’t really work as well now that door-to-door salesmen are a nearly extinct species, but I think we can all absolutely identify with Kermit here, as he struggles to keep his temper right up until the moment when he chases Grover out of his house.
On the Freakout-o-meter: 3
-“I wish I’d never been born!”
Freakouts are seemingly rarer in Kermit’s Steve Whitmire era, but Whitmire showed us he could bring the frantic with Kermit’s Christmas Eve rant in It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie. The Muppet Theater has been lost to a greedy corporate type, and Kermit blames himself. His self-loathing diatribe to Daniel the angel (which mostly consists of variations on “I WISH I’D NEVER BEEN BORN!”) is really just a device to steer the movie into the “world without Kermit” sequence, but it manages to be sad and hilarious at the same time.
On the Freakout-o-meter: 9
-Cookie Monster and the Mystery BoxKermit was paired with Cookie Monster much less frequently than with Grover, but here we see that Cookie is just as skilled at pushing the frog’s buttons. In this sketch, Kermit is frustrated by Cookie’s willful, persistent ignorance.
No doubt most Muppet fans would consider it to be a minor entry in Kermit’s history of rants, but this Whitmire-era freakout from Muppet Treasure Island deserves an honorable mention. After the roll call scene establishes that the Hispaniola’s crew is full of unsavory characters, Kermit’s Captain Smollett demands to know: “Who hired this crew? This is undoubtedly the seediest bunch of cutthroats, villains, and scoundrels I have ever seen, so who hired them?!” It’s slight compared to some of these other moments, but I’m pretty sure this was the first time we saw Steve Whitmire’s Kermit lose his temper, so it was like a sweet reunion with an old, beloved, yelling friend. (By the way, it was Mr. Bimbo, the little man who lives in Fozzie’s finger. He hired the crew.)
On the Freakout-o-meter: 2
-The Wonderful World of T-shirts
All Kermit wants is a T-shirt with his name on it. But if he got what he wanted, we wouldn’t have this Sesame Street sketch, with appearances by Kermit the Forg, Kermit the Grof, and Kermit the Gorf… and the inclusion of Kermit’s exasperated line “I’m Kermit the Frog and I told you I want my Kermit the Frooooog t-shirt!” to which Frank Oz’s shopkeeper Muppet responds, “No need to get emotional!” Left unanswered: Why Kermit is already wearing a Kermit the Frog t-shirt when he arrives at the store. How many does he need, anyway?
On the Freakout-o-meter: 6
Watch it on YouTube!
-Kermit insults Piggy’s heritage
I debated whether to include this one, because it’s not really Kermit getting mad so much as Kermit being mean to Piggy. In the John Denver episode of The Muppet Show, Kermit is chagrined to find that none of his fellow Muppets are looking forward to their camping trip to the swamp. Piggy is particularly unenthusiastic, and when Kermit figures this out, he gets a little testy: “We don’t have to go to the swamp. We can go back to where you were born — the sty! You know, where your roots are! Where pigs eat swill and wallow in the mud! Remember that?” This does not persuade Piggy to look forward to the swamp.
On the Freakout-o-meter: 2
-Stop That Bus Stop
Even rarer than a Kermit/Cookie Monster pairing is a Kermit/Oscar the Grouch pairing, and this one finds Kermit understandably displeased when Oscar tries to build a bus stop in his living room. “This is a terrible place for a bus stop! What kind of bus is going to drive into my living room?!” he demands, and of course the next thing that happens is a bus drives into his living room. You can’t stop civic progress. As I was watching Sesame clips in preparation of this article, I noticed that they almost never used the same set more than once to represent Kermit’s apartment, but if you think about it, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation: He keeps moving, in a desperate, futile effort to prevent the other Muppets from dropping by and annoying him.
On the Freakout-o-meter: 4
Watch it on the Sesame Video Player!
-Kermit’s Telephone Demo
So we’ve seen Kermit abused by Grover, Cookie Monster, and Oscar. Now how about America’s dumbest urban cowboy, Forgetful Jones? In this sketch, Kermit tries to teach Forgetful how to use the telephone, and of course everything goes smoothly and Forgetful gets it right on the first try and nothing funny happens whatsoever.
On the Freakout-o-meter: 3
Watch it on the Sesame Video Player!
-Piggy is fired
This is the one, right here. In the Loretta Swit episode of The Muppet Show, Miss Piggy leaks a story to a tabloid that she and Kermit are secretly married. To say that Kermit is unamused would be a vast understatement. “I will not stand around while you do dumb things like that!” he snaps, and when she asks what he’s going to do about it, he has an answer: “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Piggy, I’m going to fire you! Piggy, you are fired! You are fired, Piggy! You are fired! FIRED!” And he fires her! But of course she’s back by the end of the episode. You know, sometimes when I watch this stuff it really hits me just how dysfunctional Kermit and Piggy’s relationship is.
On the Freakout-o-meter: 10
Watch it on YouTube!
-“Go ahead and walk!”
In The Great Muppet Caper, Kermit confronts Piggy at a duck pond in the park, the day after she tricked him into believing she was Lady Holiday. This scene is really more about Kermit and Piggy snapping at each other…
PIGGY: I’m playing over 800 different emotions here!
KERMIT: Well, why don’t you try playing one of them right?!
PIGGY: I have a career of my own! I don’t need this lousy duck pond!
KERMIT: Okay, sure, go ahead, walk! Walk! Go ahead and walk!
…than a rant from Kermit, but it’s entertaining as always to see him make scrunchy faces and breathe heavily. Naturally, this scene of Kermit and Piggy screaming at each other is immediately followed by the most romantic scene in the movie, the “Couldn’t We Ride” number.
On the Freakout-o-meter: 5
-The Huggies
And here’s another classic Kermit/Piggy scene that confirms the notion that for these two crazy lovebirds, yelling is like foreplay. Kermit’s just discovered that Piggy (whom he thought was far away at a new job) has been spying on him and his new friend Jenny. If she’s just a friend, Piggy demands, why were you giving her the huggies? And then I just have to quote the scene:
KERMIT: Jenny and I were hugging because we’re friends! That’s what friends do! Friends do not spy!
PIGGY: I spied because I care!
KERMIT: I care too!
PIGGY: Well, why don’t you say so?!
KERMIT: I JUST DID!
PIGGY: ALL RIGHT!
KERMIT: AAAGH!
PIGGY: AAAGH!
KERMIT: AAAGH!
PIGGY: AAAGH!
So the only thing that can come next is a romantic carriage ride around Central Park.
On the Freakout-o-meter: 8
Now I’m trying to remember, and I honestly can’t: When was the last time we saw Kermit yell? I can only hope it happens in the next Muppet movie. I mean, lots of Muppet characters and guest star cameos are great, but could we have Kermit flipping his lid, please? Thanks.
Click here to tell me which Kermit freakouts you can’t believe I forgot on the Tough Pigs forum! And scroll down to the previous post for some Tough Pigs April Fools’ Day merriment!
